This invention relates generally to ovens and, more particularly, to a control system for a combination oven using both radiant and microwave energy.
Known ovens are either, for example, microwave or radiant cooking type ovens. For example, a microwave oven includes a magnetron for generating RF energy used to cook food in the oven cooking cavity. Although microwave ovens cook food more quickly than radiant ovens, microwave ovens do not brown the food. Microwave ovens therefore typically are not used to cook as wide a variety of foods as radiant ovens.
Radiant cooking ovens include an energy source such as lamps which generate light energy used to cook the food. Radiant ovens brown the food and generally can be used to cook a wide variety of foods. Radiant ovens, however, cook foods slower than microwave ovens.
Microwave and radiant cooking ovens typically include an array of keypads mounted to a control panel for enabling an operator to enter and select the feature options, and a numerical key pad numbered 0-9. The complexity of the control panel and the number of keypads mounted to the control panel increases as the appliance functionality and features increase. Such control panels are often complex for users to understand, offer little flexibility to the users, and do not provide users with an opportunity to adjust or review in-progress cooking without terminating the cooking. The complexity and inflexibility of such control systems increases a likelihood that the food will be cooked correctly.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a user friendly, flexible, and easily controlled oven which provides the speed advantages of a microwave oven with the appealing browning advantage of a radiant ovens to cook a wide variety of foods.
In an exemplary embodiment of the invention a speed cooking oven includes a microwave cooking unit for delivering microwave energy and at least one radiant cooking unit for delivering radiant energy into a cooking cavity. A control panel is operatively connected to the microwave cooking unit and radiant cooking unit for user manipulation to select desired oven features including pre-programmed cooking algorithms and manually entered cooking algorithms. A microprocessor is coupled to the control panel for executing a manually entered control algorithm based upon at least one of a user selected total COOK TIME and user selected POWER LEVEL for the microwave cooking unit and the radiant cooking unit.
The control panel includes a plurality of input keys and a rotary dial input selector for easy selection of desired features by rotating the dial and depressing the dial to enter a selection. An alphanumeric display is provided to prompt a user for control information and guide the user through the oven feature selection process. The oven is operable in a microwave only cooking mode, a lightwave only cooking mode and a speed cooking mode utilizing both radiant cooking units and microwave cooking units. Thus, a variety of foods may be quickly cooked and browned in the oven, and a flexible and straightforward cooking mode and control selection process is provided with the user friendly control panel.